


One Last Painting

by TechnoXenoHolic



Category: The Transformers (Cartoon Generation One)
Genre: Gen, I re-read this posting it just now and I made myself sad, Post-War, Sad with a Happy Ending, as in I described a painting in a bunch of potentially needless detail, mild cybertronian cursing, not actual porn, possible art porn, the Twins didn't take well to getting old
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-06
Updated: 2016-11-06
Packaged: 2018-08-29 12:33:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8489815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TechnoXenoHolic/pseuds/TechnoXenoHolic
Summary: Us? But we’re old and decrepit now. We don’t make a good last painting.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a couple years ago and got a good response to it on Wattpad. now it’s coming here, because it’s too good for just Wattpad.

He picked up his paintbrush and turned it over in his hand absentmindedly, his faceplate as devoid of expression as it always was now. _‘I want to paint one last thing,’_ he murmured.

_‘What are you going to paint?’_ his brother asked in reply, settling next to him on the bench they used.

_‘Us,’_ was the simple reply.

_‘Us? But we’re old and decrepit now. We don’t make a good last painting.’_

_‘No,’_ he insisted. _‘I meant_ us.’

A small smile made its way onto his brother’s mouth. _‘Okay. Can I watch?’_

_‘Sure.’_ So he dabbed his paintbrush into crimson red, the favorite color he hadn’t seen so bright in vorns, and began to paint.

And, as he painted, he and his brother drifted together to think back, to remember—days when they had been younger, when they had purpose, played behind dulled blue optics. All the struggles of their youth, the fighting and elation of the war, friendships, rivalries, and struggles against their enemies, and finally the triumphant victory of winning the war. It was all over now, only a memory, and forgotten in the new golden age.

_‘I miss it,’_ his brother said wistfully.

_‘I miss our jet judo,’_ he replied in the same tone.

_‘I miss glitching Prowl and Red.’_

_‘I miss beating up the minibots.’_

_‘I miss pranking everyone.’_

_‘I miss our altmodes.’_

His brother laughed, more of a rasping cough that did no justice to the wonderful, joyous sound his mirth used to bring. _‘You miss being the hottest thing on four wheels, more like.’_

_‘Yeah. I do.’_ He would have frowned if he still had control of the motor relays in his face. _‘I miss all of it. Fighting with Mirage and Tracks, fighting with Ratchet, fighting with you… Just fighting in general. I miss it.’_

_‘Yeah…’_ His brother’s optics flashed wearily in sadness, a grim counterpart to the cheerful shine of the optics being painted on the canvas. _‘I miss all of it too. Drinking, partying, fragging. I miss when our bond was so strong we could have a whole conversation from all the way across the Ark in just seconds… Not hours and hours like now.’_

_‘I miss living,’_ he said somberly, pulling his brush away from the canvas and looking longingly at the figures painted there with sorrow-darkened optics.

Sideswipe stood with his arm around Sunstreaker’s shoulders, a brilliant, genuine grin on his lips. Sunstreaker’s expression was folded in a scowl but for the faintest tug of a smile on the left side of his mouth that he could never suppress when his brother was so happy. Both twins were polished, gleaming in the light of the Earth’s Sun, brilliant crimson and shining gold pitted and scuffed just barely perceptibly with the permanent wear and tear of war that Sunstreaker always tried so hard to keep from their frames. A hue of deep, midnight blue shone over the black of Sideswipe’s frame; gold fleck sparkled in the deep cocoa accents that led the optic across Sunstreaker’s form. Gold arms were crossed over the glass of a chestplate made from the roof of a Countach; a free black hand sat on a white waist, just above equally black hips that canted cockily towards the golden twin’s. Every detail, good and bad, loved and loathed, was dutifully presented and highlighted against a background of bright blue sky and a few puffy white clouds. Even the blades of grass and dustings of dirt beneath the twin frontliners’ feet were painted in perfect, careful detail.

Sideswipe smiled sadly. _‘This is how you remember us?’_

_‘It’s who we are,’_ Sunstreaker replied. He picked up his paintbrush once more and dabbed it across the bottom of the canvas, gold and red, and for the first and last time in his life he titled a painting for his own reasons.

_‘ “Sunny and Sides”,’_ Sideswipe read. He wrapped his one functioning arm around Sunstreaker’s shoulders like in the painting and grinned. _‘I miss those nicknames, too.’_

_‘You’re always gonna be Sides to me.’_

_‘Are you’re always gonna be my Sunshine, my Sunbeam, my lovely Sunflower—’_

_‘I’m just Sunny.’_

Sideswipe smiled and nuzzled his twin’s sensory helm crest, pretending it was still the same shape as it was in the painting. _‘Okay, Sunny.’_ He sighed a little. _‘C’mon. Let’s finish packing up and go see Ratchet again.’_

* * *

Prowl found himself frowning to himself as he skimmed over the note one more time. It was a shame, really, that the once mighty frontline warriors had never been able to adjust back into society. Age had only seen them retreating from those they knew as the world around them continued to change. Upgrades, new altmodes, new parts—their medic struggled to keep them functional and at pace with the rest of Cybertron. But Sunstreaker and Sideswipe had always been proud, and they had never gotten over the loss of their friends or their fight like others had.

The Praxian blinked over at the faded reddish and yellowish frames that had fallen apart with disuse and apathy, now curled up together in one final embrace, sparkless and fading slowly to gray. He looked again at the note—“We can’t stay any more. This just isn’t the life for us. We’re going to go visit everyone—take care, everybody, and please, if you can, find some place and purpose for us on Earth.” Written by Sideswipe, surely. He was cheerful to the last—it was signed with a smiley.

With a sigh, Prowl looked up at the beautiful painting left behind—Sunstreaker’s swansong. And he thought to himself that Sunny and Sides would be much happier where they had gone.

* * *

“You’re early,” a gruff voice said. “I always expected you would be late to the very last.”

Twin smirks met a scowl as tall, gold and crimson Lamborghinis stared down at a shorter Cybertronian ambulance.

“We missed you, Ratchet,” Sunstreaker said.

“But if you want, we can go avoid you for a few hours before we come back,” chimed Sideswipe.

Ratchet huffed and gathered both frontliners into his arms. “I missed you too, you idiots. We all did.” Then he pulled back and smiled up at them. “Now get out of my sight before I finally rebuild you into toasters.”

Laughing, and finally home, Sunny and Sides fled to go visit and pester the others they hadn’t seen in so long.


End file.
